Darren O’Donnell

Telling by involving: the seminar on participative theatre

This training seminar is for whoever wants to gain some advice and innovative strategies to develop site-specific and participative plays, that can be both provocative and original.

The work is based on the active involvement of people (not actors) of different ages and social context.

Artistic director and founder of the Canadian Mammalian Diving Reflex (considered the international expects in this area, always present at the most important international theatre festivals) Darren O’Donnell will guide you in the ideation and test of small performative actions based on his method: social ago puncture, designed to explore and systematize innovative devices to interact with the public.

The seminar in in English, with Italian translation, and is free.

To participate you should have a strong interest in this social practice. Experience is not necessary.

At the end of the seminar, who is interested can produce and send to ZONA K a participative theatre show to realize in Milan (following some parameters set out by ZONA K) to participate at the residence selection of ZONA K 2019.

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Darren O’Donnell is a novelist, essayist, playwright, director, designer and performer. His books (published by Coach House Press) include: Haircuts by Children and Other Evidence for a New Social Contract (2017), Social Acupuncture (2006), which argues for aesthetics of civic engagement, and Your Secrets Sleep with Me (2004), a novel about difference, love and the miraculous. His stage-based works include White Mice (1998), [boxhead] (2000), and All the Sex I’ve Ever Had (2012), all produced by Mammalian. Darren was the 2000 winner of the Pauline McGibbon Award for directing and has been nominated for a number of Dora Awards for his writing, directing, and acting, winning (with Naomi Campbell) for their design of White Mice. His play [boxhead] was nominated for a Chalmers Award and he received a Gabriel Award for excellence in broadcasting for his CBC radio piece Like a Fox. Under his directorship, Mammalian won the 2010 Mayor’s Arts Award for Youth, and his Mammalian Protocol for Collaborating with Children was awarded the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children Supporter Award in 2012. Darren has an MSc. in urban planning, a BFA in acting and studied shiatsu and tradition Chinese medicine at The Shiatsu School of Canada. Follow Darren on Twitter: @darrenodonnell Instagram: @o.darren Periscope: @darrenodonnell Snapchat: photoshine